Page 178 of Fated to the Wolf Prince
Every second counted, and we didn’t have time for distractions.
When I walked through the door, I half-expected to see a bomb attached to the wall, but the only thing hanging above the checkout desk was a very large clock, reminding me of our time limit.
I ran down the steps to the basement, flicking the light switch as I passed.
Rows upon rows of books were shoved in so tightly that I wondered if we needed to look into upgrading the building.
The smell of musty books and dusty air made me sneeze, the sound reverberating off the walls of the empty basement.
I rushed up and down each aisle, looking for anything out of place. All I found were old reference books and a few microfiche machines. Nothing seemed out of place, so I ran back up the stairs.
Nico met me in the main lobby, letting me know that the third floor had been scanned by his team. Everything was in order. There were no signs of further clues, and there were certainly no bombs.
There had to be something specific we were looking for. I checked the time, and my heart jumped into my throat. We were running out of time, but what the hell were we trying to find?
After working with Nico to search the reference desk area, I found Liza in the nonfiction section of the library. Moving in her direction, I passed a row of encyclopedias. A thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Everyone, listen up!” I shouted, hoping the entire team could hear my voice. “The dates of the disasters must have some significance.” I pulled up the notes app on my phone again. “Meet me in the archives section and I’ll assign each of you a date.”
Everyone lined up, diligently receiving their assigned date and making a note of it on their phone. We all spread out and wasted no time finding the dates, digging through the books, hoping to find the clue.
Liza joined me in searching for the same date Hurricane Harvey had caused so much destruction in Houston.
“How much time do we have left?” she asked in a tight voice.
I quickly glanced at my watch. “We literally have fifteen minutes left.”
“Holy shit!” Liza yelled and stood to her feet. “I found something.”
I rushed to her side. On the inside cover of the book she was holding, a small rectangle had been carved out, and an SD card was pressed into it.
A few more shouts filled the room as everyone realized Liza had done it again. She held the clue in her hands.
“Somebody boot up one of these computers. Now!”
Dad stood behind me, staring in awe at the small SD chip that would save our pack from impending disaster. “Shouldn’t we scan this for viruses? What if it somehow fucks up the library system?”
“There’s no time for that. Worst-case scenario, we buy the library new computers.” My heart was close to exploding. As soon as the computer booted up, Liza shoved the SD card into the slot. A few seconds later, a long number popped up on the screen.
“Fuck. What does it mean?” I squinted at the screen, expecting some additional verbiage to be hidden behind the numbers.
Liza tapped the screen with her fingernail. “It’s a Dewey decimal number. You know, the number used to organize the books.”
I checked the time. We had three minutes to find the book.
Liza grabbed the mouse and opened the library’s online catalog system, typing faster than I thought was humanly possible.
The name of the book and its location popped onto the screen, a greenavailableflashing below the title, letting us know that we could, indeed, borrow the book.
“This title looks familiar,” I said as Liza jotted down the location.
“Yeah, it’s a book about betrayal. It’s about a king who built his empire on lies and deceit, and the eventual fall of the empire.”
Of course. Nothing Castro did was accidental. He took jabs wherever and whenever he could.
We ran to the adult fiction section, scanning each shelf as we rushed by, following the alphabetically ordered signs until we reached the letter of the author’s last name.
Finally, we found the book. Liza flipped it open. A rectangle had been carved out of the pages, and a phone was nestled inside it.
